How Jesus Prays for Us

Introduction

A year ago, I was in a pretty difficult work environment. The toughest factor in my situation was not knowing where I stood with with management. I felt like I was doing all the right things I knew to do, but I could never quite tell what my manager really wanted from me, at least not till after I’d finished something and then gotten told otherwise. It’s really difficult not knowing where you stand, especially with someone you really need to be on the same page as. You may have worked a job like that, had a teacher whose expectations seemed inscrutable, or struggled to know where you stood with a parent, spouse, or other close relationship. The passage we’ll be looking at today shows us that Jesus is absolutely not that kind of manager.

Let’s set the stage for John 17 a bit. While the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke discuss the Passover meal (Last Supper) in the upper room and the anguished prayers of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, John recounts what is likely a pre-Passover feast with foot-washing and a lengthy prayer for the disciples. John 17 records that prayer. Since John spends an entire chapter recounting this prayer as dialog, I’m inclined to think that Jesus prayed this aloud with his disciples. In this prayer, Jesus reveals in great detail what he wants his followers. No aloof management, unpredictable expectations, or mystique here. What’s really amazing is that Jesus’ transparency and clarity are not just for disciples and dinner guests around that table with him. Listen to v20 in our text today:

I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word…

Yes, Jesus prays for those who surround him locally the night of this prayer, but he explicitly broadens these requests to include everyone else who will believe because of the message (word) of the disciples. Friends, I don’t think there’s another word in Scripture so explicitly for us as this prayer. We are heirs of the apostolic gospel, passed down from those who were with Jesus that night to the church of God today, and so this prayer quite intentionally includes us. So, what does Jesus ask the Father to do for us?

A quick note on the structure of this paragraph (and thus, this sermon) before we move on: this chapter of prayer is cyclical. Jesus introduces various requests, words, and themes, and instead of praying one thing at a time, he keeps circling back and revisiting previous ideas. It’s like “themes and variations-es” for folks who like musical analogies. Or perhaps, it’s like threads that keep showing up in a tapestry, perhaps woven in different patterns or alongside different colors as the cloth is completed. Today’s text, like a tapestry, has both warp and weft (vertical and horizontal threads). We’ll start with the horizontal threads: the passage contains two separate requests (20-23, 24-26) and we’ll start by noticing those threads. Then we’ll move to the vertical threads: two important themes that intersect both of the requests we started with. So we’ll make two passes at these verses in order to give both thread directions the attention they deserve.

Unity & Love

Unity

This portion of Jesus’ prayer has two sections, each introduced by a statement of request: “I ask” in v20 and “I desire” in v24. The first thing Jesus asks for is our unity. There are two phrases that are repeated in v20-23 to describe this unity: “being one” and “being in.”

Both “being one” and “being in” are phrases readers would’ve already run across in John’s gospel. In Jn 10.30, Jesus is nearly stoned after claiming “I and my Father are one.” In Jn 14.10, Jesus uses the illustration of a vine and its branches: “those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” These phrases communicate a deep essential oneness.

Unity around Jesus

What kind of unity are we talking about? Does this prayer preclude all disagreement or arguing? Do denominations violate Jesus’ intent? If we consider the context of this prayer, other words of Jesus point us to a certain kind of unity. This unity stems from the message (word) of the disciples who were with Jesus the night of this prayer. That tells me that the unity Jesus wants has an anchor: a core we’re meant to unify around. The disciples’ “word” (or message, or testimony) becomes the apostolic witness to Jesus (by the time John wrote his gospel, existing written words like the other gospels had probably already become recognized as that authoritative witness). The unity Jesus is aiming for has his own gospel message at its core. It’s not a superficial unity of finding the lowest common denominator and acting as though there’s nothing to be precise about. Neither is it a rigid demand that everyone agree on every tiny detail: an artificial “unanimity” shaped by high-control leadership tactics, shallow group-think, or an untenable demand for imperfect humans to achieve perfect certainty. Jesus is the center of the unity he prays for us to experience. The disciples’ word, the story of how Jesus lived, died, rose, and will return - that’s the anchoring reality that makes us one.

Now let’s let Jesus transition us into part 2. In v23, Jesus concludes his first request with an intro to his second.

I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus moves from unity (“I in them,” “you in me,” “completely one”) to “love” in this transition.

Love

So the second request Jesus makes is all about love. You may wonder, “Isn’t love another way of saying unity?” And if you wondered that out loud near me, I’d probably reply, “kind of, but not entirely.” If unity and love were a Venn diagram, there’d be an awful lot of overlap for sure, but also there are some unique bits around the edges.

There are two phrases related to love here: “love” itself, and “know” or “known.” You may be used to the euphemistic way that “know” is used in Scripture to convey intimacy in a dignified closed-door way, like Gen 4.1: “Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived.” In this prayer, Jesus uses “know” as a proxy for the kind of intimate, tender relationship we often call “love.” He asks for “the love with which you loved me [to] be in them” (26). With these words, Jesus concludes by asking for the Father’s love to “be in them, and I in them” - a neat little callback to his first request.

Glory & Mission

Glory

The unifying love that Jesus prays for is created by glory. Look at v22: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jesus takes the glory that the Father has given him and gives it to us, so that we’re as united as the Son and Father are. Similarly, in v24 we read, “I desire that [they] may be with me … to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me,” and in v26, “I made your name known [glory] to them, … so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.”

The first reference to glory in John’s Gospel comes all the way back in the first chapter, Jn 1.14:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The glory that we experience, that connects the Father and the Son is the glory of that parent/child relationship. Families come in lots of different shapes and sizes and not all families have an only child: some don’t, and some don’t for long. But I would suggest there’s more here than just pride in a unique child. For a father to have only one son in the culture John and Jesus lived in meant that everything the father had belonged to the that son. There were no other heirs. In Jn 16.15, Jesus says “All that the Father has is mine.” He’s the only heir so he receives his father’s everything. Core to this “glory” is an undivided full inheritance.

Now our passage today is the last time John writes the word “glory” in his gospel. This is surprising to me. It wouldn’t surprise me if “glory” showed up in John’s upside-down way near the upcoming crucifixion. I’d very much expect it in John’s resurrection chapters! But no, this is it - and why? I’d submit that this prayer of Jesus about the unity and love that he wants his followers to experience, this beautiful ideal, this ultimate aim for the people of God, this is the culmination of “glory” as John records it. John starts with the son Jesus, sole inheritor of all the Father has, then ultimately sees this glory finding its fulfillment not in the death or resurrection of Jesus, but in that undivided inheritance given to us, producing a community ongoing unity and love.

The full inheritance Jesus receives, everything the Father gives him, he shares with us so that we’ll be united in love. How much human relational fracture is the result of perceived scarcity? Siblings are rivals when they perceive a need to compete for scarce attention or love. Political parties oppose each other because there’s only so much in the national budget every year and they have different aims for spending tax revenue. The historian become literary critic become anthropologist become theologian René Girard proposed that mimetic desire was at the root of all sin and violence. Out of imitation, we naturally want what we see our neighbor having, but we can’t have what our neighbor already has, so division, strife, and violence ensue. But what if we really understood that everything the Father has given Jesus, Jesus gives to us so that we may be one? There is no scarcity in the economy of God. And where there’s no scarcity, there’s no competition or rivalry or strife. There’s room for loving unity.

I wonder where we feel scarcity in our lives. We absolutely do, and accurately so. We’re living in that gritty in-between: the kingdom has been inaugurated by Jesus, but we’re also waiting for him to fully take his place on the throne. In this life, we feel scarcity around our money and other material possessions, our time, our relationships, even some of our hopes and dreams. And all too often, that scarcity fractures us apart. While our lived experience today is one of scarcity, our spiritual reality is nothing but abundance. Everything the Father has is given to the Son; Jesus turns around and gives that to us so that, with scarcity dispelled and fear assuaged, we are freed from strife and division to be truly one, to truly love.

Mission

The first thread through unity and love was “glory;” the second is “mission” - what Jesus refers to as sending or being sent, something that happens in the sight of the world around us. While glory pointed our attention to our relationships of love and unity with one another, I’d suggest that “mission” directs our attention outward to the effect our loving unity has on the world around us.

This mission is the outcome of our unity. In v21, Jesus says that the unity he and the Father have is the unity we’re invited into, “so that the world may believe [the Father] has sent [Jesus].” Jesus says to the Father, “the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me” (25). Just a few hours earlier, Jesus had told his followers, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (13.35).

This is a big motivation for us to actively embody the unity Jesus prays for. Our unity with each other and with the Godhead shows the world that the Father really did send Jesus. Our visible unity (or lack thereof) shows the world how good a job Jesus is doing with his Father’s commission. To be very clear, this is not a “command to be united” or a shaming, scolding bit of sermon at you. Jesus doesn’t say “get along or you’re going to royally screw up my plans!” He doesn’t; nothing like that. He prays for the Father (who sent him) to give us glorious abundance that produces unity so that we’ll show others that the Father really did send him. This is a gift from God through and through, not a burden to weigh us down or make us feel guilty. By directing our attention to the world that needs to know that the Father sent the Son, Jesus is asking that our lives would draw more and more people into this abundant life of glorious grace and unity that God gives. That can feel like a big scary responsibility but again, Jesus isn’t telling us to do that, he’s asking the Father to make us that kind of community.

Conclusion

We’ve walked through Jesus’ prayer requests for us: for the twin goals of unity and love, mirroring the unity and love that the Father and the Son share. We’ve seen how those goals are made possible by our receiving the abundant glory, the full inheritance the Son received from the Father and gives to us; when we recognize the abundance we’ve been given, strive and division fall away and the obstacles to unity and love are no more. Then as we embody that loving unity, we participate in the mission of Jesus. We take the invisible reality that the Father has sent the Son, and we make it visible to the world, inviting more people to believe in the Son, welcoming them into our unified, loving community, experiencing God-given abundance. These goals are not burdens placed on us; this beautiful ideal is what Jesus prays the Father will give us. And how confident can we be that the Father will answer Jesus’ prayers? As Jesus himself said in Jn 11.41-42:

“Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”